The Second Coming
by nightfury123
Summary: Hiccup is the rider of Toothless - a Night Fury, and one of the fastest species of dragon currently known to man. So it's more than a little ironic that, prior to his friendship with the unholy offspring of lightning and death, the gods made him afraid of heights. (Will potentially link to an upcoming fanfic.)


**A/N: A few words of warning:**

 **I actually wrote this in February (3 days after my birthday! :D), so the writing you'll see here isn't my best. :/ And my paragraphing was even worse back then than it is now, if that's possible.**

 **Those darn single quotations! :/**

 **But regardless of those things, please enjoy! :) And if you didn't, please tell me why! As long as it's constructive, of course! :D 'Cause I can handle that stuff. XD**

 **(By the way, if you're wondering about the title, it's a lyric from 'This is Gonna Hurt' by a band called Sixx:AM. Bit of foreshadowing for what's going to happen in the story! On the subject of the song, I do believe there's a HTTYD AMV for it, so please go and check it out if you so wish :)**

 **And yes, I like rock. :) And indie. Imagine Dragons forever! :D Speaking of which, I was going to go to one of their concerts at the O2 or something, but I'm not anymore... :( And I'm scared I won't get the courage to go if another opportunity comes up... :/)**

* * *

A seven-year-old Hiccup, son of the Chief of Berk, stared up at the thick trunk of Timberjack Tree, and swallowed hard.

'I don't want to.'

'What was that, _Hiccup_?' Snotlout asked, walking up to his little cousin and smiling slightly as he backed away.

In his later years, Snotlout would not have bullied his younger relative, because Hiccup had learnt to reply back with sarcastic remarks, as his father had taught him, which Snotlout could not respond to. Unfortunately, the young brown haired Chief-to-be hadn't developed this tactic yet, so Snotlout was nastier to him.

Hiccup swallowed hard again before continuing, his voice trembling. 'I- I don't want to climb Timberjack Tree, Snotlout.'

'But your dad said that you have to climb it to play with us,' Tuffnut interjected.

'No he didn't,' Hiccup replied, slightly affronted and irritated.

'OK, well, regardless- and that's a _really_ big word-' -his sister nodded in agreement behind him- 'if your dad said that or not- wait. Did he, or didn't he? I forget.

' _Anyway_ ,' Tuffnut continued loudly, 'You're still going to have to climb Timberjack Tree if you want to play with us. And if you can't climb the Tree, you won't be able to play with us. And if you can't play with us' -he gasped in fake fear- 'then we'll tell your dad- and that'll make him angry, because the reason you're not playing with us in the first place is because he had some important Chiefing to do.'

Hiccup sighed. 'I'm sorry, but I don't understand that, Tuffnut.'

'You're not _supposed_ to understand!' shouted the eight-year-old Thorston boy. 'Just climb the Tree!'

'I told you guys, I don't want to!' Hiccup repeated.

Snotlout made to terrify his cousin further- but Ruffnut had a better idea.

'Well, if you don't want to climb it,' she said craftily, 'We could just leave you here... in the dark... maybe a Night Fury will come... maybe you'll climb up the Tree...'

Hiccup snorted mockingly; a rare occurrence, as he was usually a kind little boy. 'That's big talk for someone who needed their mommy to sing them lullabies so that they wouldn't be afraid of the dark.'

Instead of reacting furiously, Ruffnut ran off, a devilish grin on her face, which was made creepier by the lengthening shadows stretching across the woods. The others followed behind her.

'I'll tell my dad about this!' Hiccup shouted after them.

 _How will you if it's getting too dark to go home and tell him_? said a voice in his mind- or it might have been Snotlout's or the twins' words as they ran off.

Unfortunately, another voice- or rather, noise- in his mind- at least, it was growing so rapidly faster that it seemed to fill it- was a whistling, screeching sound.

He ran like a small little squirrel straight up Timberjack Tree.

For he knew what that sound was.

It was a Night Fury.

* * *

Hiccup lay clutching the topmost branch of the tree, trembling with three things: cold, his fear of the dark, and his fear of dragons; or, more specifically, although he was scared of dragons, he was also more scared of the Night Fury at this point in time.

Then, suddenly, the terrible screeching sound stopped.

And with that sound stopping, a new one began- the sound of footsteps crunching on leaves and the hard frozen winter ground.

 _Have my father and Gobber come to save me_? Hiccup thought desperately, hope rising inside his chest.

Unfortunately, it wasn't; it was Snotlout and the twins.

'Holy gods, he's actually got up there,' gasped Snotlout in disbelief.

As soon as he said this, a terrible fear gripped Hiccup. He grasped the spindly branch even tighter than before, so much so that his knuckles glowed white, and began to feel sick and dizzy.

'Um, guys?' Hiccup managed weakly, swallowing back bile. 'I- I'm stuck... C-could you get me down?'

That, however, became the least of his worries.

The beat of huge, long wings filled his ears and the sky, and a massive roar ripped the forest apart.

' _AAH_!' screamed Snotlout and the twins together. ' _TIMBERJACK_!'

But the dragon was not interested in them... _yet_.

Hiccup could feel the great, thick trunk of the Tree shuddering under the weight of the creature that it had got its name from. He had to cling on for dear life, even more so than he was doing already.

 _I know what_ _it_ ' _s_ _doing_ , Hiccup thought in a kind of calm terror. _It_ ' _s_ _trying to shake me out of the Tree_ \- _and then I_ ' _ll fall into its jaws_. _Or maybe it_ ' _ll carry me off and eat me, like a dragon did to my mother_.

But none of these things, actually, were what the Timberjack was trying to do at all.

After making the Tree shudder one last time, groaning, it roared in rage and fury and anger, slashed the trunk to kindling with the razor-sharp ends of its wings, and torched it for good measure, it seemed.

Then it lifted its wings to the night sky blazing with sparks, and took off, leaving Hiccup to his fate- no more than a mere insignificant tiny human to it, to perish and burn and die within the fire of the blazing Tree, or to splatter his brains on the charred ground when the Tree fell.

'Wait!' cried Hiccup. 'Stop! Don't leave me here!'

The dragon spun 'round as it was flying past the part of the Tree where Hiccup was clinging, scarring the boy's cheek with the edge of one of its razor-sharp wings, causing a cry of pain to escape from his throat.

Suddenly, it flew into the Tree, rubbing its back against it, groaning. But this had no positive effects for Hiccup, as the dragon slamming into the Tree only caused the tree to shudder again, on the point of breaking, and for the sparks to soar higher.

Now some of them were reaching the surrounding branches of the one Hiccup was clutching.

A thought, with the speed of a flash of lightning, or perhaps the rate at which a spark consumes a branch, as one near Hiccup was doing now, came into his head, born of the terror of the moment.

He only had _one_ second, _one_ chance.

Whipping his knife out of its scabbard, he sawed at a small yet long and strong fork of a branch which hadn't yet caught fire.

 _Yet_ , he reminded himself- and yelped in pain as the branch of the fork was consumed and bit his finger; and burnt the wooden hilt of his knife to nothing, leaving only the blade.

That didn't matter, though. For the moment. The only thing that mattered was doing this.

Standing up- on top of a tree that was catching fire- he dared to look down at the ground, _so far away_ , and saw Snotlout and the twins staring up at him, mouths hanging open like muttonheads, awed expressions on their faces.

The world swayed. He grabbed onto a branch that cracked _just_ before he let go- luckily giving him just enough time to recover his balance. He thanked all the gods as he walked to the edge of the very last branch.

He leaned forwards, praying to Odin, just enough so that he could barely reach the Timberjack- and then the dragon turned around and looked at him.

Those beautiful, yellow, _furious_ eyes. So hypnotising that Hiccup nearly plummeted off the tree and died right there and then, despite Odin's and all the other gods' blessings.

It roared in rage, and turned around, its back facing the boy, preparing to spin around and cut his throat with the edges of its razor-sharp wings.

He only had _one_ second, _one_ chance.

In an instant, Hiccup stretched out his scrawny little arm as much as he could- and scratched the Timberjack's back.

The dragon stayed there for a moment or two, enjoying the feeling, growling in pleasure.

Then it flew off, into the night.

 _Crack_.

Then the trunk of the Tree was splitting, the branches were utterly consumed in fire, Hiccup was falling...

Suddenly, he felt a rush of air as something dived to save him... he was enwrapped in brown, leathery wings...

* * *

The Timberjack stayed there, shielding, protecting, covering the boy lying unconscious beside the fallen tree with its wing until it saw, heard and sensed two shapes; one huge, the other slightly smaller, yet still as hulking as his companion.

Stoick the Vast frowned and grunted as he saw something huge and brown fly off into the shadowy pre-dawn sky.

 _Probably a giant flying boar_ , he dismissed, even though he knew such things could not exist. He only allowed himself to think that it could because he wasn't awake properly yet. Despite this, he had actually been awake all night; tossing and turning in his great bed as he stressed why Hiccup hadn't come home- and then dashing to the Great Hall as one of the sentries had knocked on the door, telling him that the twins and Snotlout had been seen fleeing the woods after nightfall. It had took him and Gobber the entire night to question them (mostly due to the twins' stupidity), and eventually they'd finally told them that Hiccup had climbed up a tree (for reasons they hadn't wished to discuss) and a Timberjack had appeared, and it had set the Tree on fire and slashed the trunk, and then it had flown off, and then- skipping a good few things- Hiccup had been standing at the top of a blazing tree, and had walked to the end of the last branch.

For Stoick, this was all he needed to know. His face turned pale, and without another word (apart from '" _Had been_ "? What do you mean " _had been_ "?'), ran out of the Hall, and towards the woods, with Gobber hobbling along behind him.

His best friend's one remaining hand made out of flesh tapped- or rather thumped, as a Viking equivalent- him on the shoulder. 'Stoick.'

With a cry, the mighty Chief rushed to his son, checking him over quickly, and then doing nothing else but wrapping him in his bearskin cloak and squeezing the life out of him with joy.

* * *

'I- I'm not afraid anymore, Dad,' Hiccup murmured when he woke up.

'Of what, son?' his father asked immediately, overjoyed that his son had awoke.

'Of heights.'

'Well, I'm not surprised, lad. You do realise that you fell from the top of a tree as tall as me- not to mention it was on fire- last night.'

The Chief chuckled and ruffled his son's brown hair- but that laugh had a slightly hysterical edge to it.

'So how did you do it, eh?'

Hiccup swallowed hard, for the third time in the course of two days. 'I-'

Without warning, his father's huge hand swatted the air just a few inches from his son's face. Hiccup gasped and jumped back in surprise and terror, knowing and believing his whole life that his father would never hurt him (at least, not deliberately; which, unfortunately, as horrible as his cousin was, was more than he could say for Spitelout's treatment of his son)- but maybe he'd gone back on that promise now, driven to violence with the anger of knowing that his son had helped a Timberjack. Then he heard great roars of laughter- not rage, as he'd mistaken them for.

'Oh, who am I kidding!' bellowed Stoick. 'You're the strongest of them all! Who am I to question you?'

'Um, well, you're still the Chief of Berk, Dad,' tried Hiccup.

At this, Stoick's red, happy face suddenly became pale and tired in the morning light- and very sad.

'I know, I know, son... "The strongest of them all" was what I used to call you when you were so tiny and small- a-and sick. We were both so worried about you...' He turned his face away.

Hiccup noted, equally as sadly, that his father had said "we". Then he crept off, out of bed, leaving his father to grieve- going to the one person he knew who was always happy.

Stoick hardly noticed or cared- this was a regular occurrence nowadays.

* * *

'It's strange,' said Gobber loudly to himself. 'The beast slashed all the trees in the forest- but it didn't set them on fire. The only one that it torched was Timberjack Tree- not surprising, really.'

'Oh! Hiccup!' he exclaimed as he saw the seven-year-old before him, as if he'd only just noticed that he'd come in.

'You look terrible, laddie. Why did you come here- oh. Is your dad feelin' a little bit sad again, eh?'

'Yeah,' Hiccup replied gloomily. 'But that's not the only reason why I came here.'

He pulled the blade of his knife from his pocket, being careful to hold it using only the flat of it, so as to not cut his fingers.

The blacksmith took one look at it, clapped his prosthetic and flesh hands together, and yelled cheerily, 'Well, by the gods, this is great timing, isn't it! That beast in the woods just slashed every single tree in the forest to kindling, so we'll have a new hilt for that knife in no time!'

And he hobbled off, a not-quite-so-enthusiastic- Hiccup trailing behind him.

* * *

The young blacksmith's apprentice entered the forge for the second time quite a bit happier than he had done the first time, at a running pace, for he was very excited.

'So, you heard a _Night Fury_?' Gobber had asked in surprise and slight terror as Hiccup had told him what he could remember of his adventure in the woods the night before, as they were walking through said woods. He had left out the part about the Timberjack, obviously.

'Yep,' Hiccup smiled, instantly cheered with awe and wonder, despite how terrified he had been when he had heard its sound originally.

'Well, laddie, I'd say that you should try and catch one. Why not give it a shot? Could be your only chance to make somethin' of yourself. You've got more than enough wood to make a new knife-hilt, and a little catapult, too. I'll give you any bolas you need, or metal.'

At first, Hiccup had looked at his mentor with disbelief, but now, as he stood before a piece of parchment and a stick of charcoal, all ready and prepared to start drawing his first designs, he pounded his fist on the worktable determinedly.

Yes.

He would do it.

No matter how many years it took him, he would.

He would catch that Night Fury- and change history, although not at all in the way he had expected.

* * *

Hiccup's new leg made contact with the wooden floor of his bedroom.

 _Click_.

The wood of the leg was made from the slashed trees of the forest.

Night Fury and Viking shared a glance, both born of green eyes, both of worry.

And while that glance took place, Hiccup thought, _And I_ ' _m not afraid of dragons either now_.

Now, as he stood awkwardly on his leg, both hands placed on the handle of the front door, another thought came to him.

 _Let_ ' _s go and see if they aren_ ' _t_ , _either_.

* * *

'Dad, can I go out flying with Toothless?' Hiccup asked.

Stoick sighed. As of late, his son had been trying to do said thing, as his father's pressure on him to become Chief increased; to "get away from it all", as he called it.

'No.'

' _What_?' Hiccup exploded. 'Come on Dad, I'm _eighteen_! And remember,' he added, 'the safest place for me is on Toothless.'

'Yes, son, as you've reminded me Thor knows how many times,' his father replied. 'But no matter how many times you say it, I'm still convinced that that dragon's back has not been the safest place for you- in the past.

'Though I would say that you could be safe now- if you're _careful_ ,' he finished.

'Great! Thanks, Dad!' Hiccup shouted, clambering onto Toothless and zooming off; too late to hear Stoick mutter 'Teenagers,' as he continued with his breakfast.

* * *

'Right, where should we go, bud?' Hiccup asked his dragon, patting Toothless' sleek scaly side.

Toothless rumbled, as if in thought, and moved his head slightly towards the direction of a wooded island to the north.

'Excellent decision skills as usual, Toothless,' Hiccup laughed playfully.

* * *

Once he had dismounted Toothless, Hiccup sat down cross-legged on the grass, taking out his map and spreading it before him.

A croon told him that Toothless had decided to join him, and hadn't wandered off to explore.

'I've never seen this island before,' the Viking muttered, half to himself and half to his dragon. 'Hmmmmm... Maybe some Tidal Class dragons forced it up from underwater... or maybe some Whispering Deaths caused it to appear...?

'Anyway,' he continued, speaking to Toothless now, 'what should we name it?'

He began muttering again, noting his surroundings in an effort to help him name the island.

'Let's see... We seem to be in some sort of clearing right now; there's a lot of trees up ahead, in a row. They'll probably lead to a forest... there might be some Timberjacks in there...'

'I know!' he suddenly shouted, startling Toothless, which earned the Night Fury's master a reproachful look. 'Gosvah Grove!' He began frantically scribbling down the new name of the island in runes, glancing over his shoulder to check the distance of it from Berk before drawing a brief sketch of the island. He thought about adding a picture of a Timberjack, to indicate that the island was one of the locations where the species lived, as he did with other dragons- but, as the species' residence there hadn't officially been confirmed, he decided to leave it until there was some evidence.

Now fully recovered from his fright, Toothless followed his master to investigate if there were indeed any Timberjacks living in the forest of the Grove.

' _ROOOAAAR_!' Said dragon's distinctive roar confirmed this; a sound like tree-trunks cracking; or at least a sound loud enough to cause this. As such, it was often referred to as 'the Thunderdrum of the land.'

But it wasn't just _any_ Timberjack's roar, oh no; this was a very special Timberjack's roar.

'Hey, big guy!' Hiccup cried, as the very same Timber who had saved him from having his brains splattered on the ground from a falling tree, alighted.

He extended his palm to the dragon, and it gratefully accepted his touch. With the other hand, he touched the spot on the dragon's back which he thought he had scratched, five years ago- just to check.

The Timber's eyes lit up, remembering. He grunted, to invite Hiccup to scratch.

The Viking caught on to what he was indicating, and did.

As he was scratching, he said, amid the Timber's growls of pleasure, 'You know what? I think we need a name for you, big guy. Just in case you decide to come back anytime soon.'

Leaving the dragon's scratch-spot, he stood well back, so that he had full view of the creature.

'Hmmmmm... I've got it! _Stokehead_!'

This sudden repeated announcing of a name appeared to startle Stokehead as much as Toothless, and he flew off.

'Stokehead! Come back!' called Hiccup to the huge disappearing shape in the sky.

But the Timberjack would be back soon; in fact, he would join the Viking and his dragon, on the flight in which Hiccup tested out his flight suit for the first time.

* * *

 **Awwwww... Poor Stoick. :(**

 **Gobber's as tactless as ever, I see. :D**

 **Sorry I'm not saying much, it's just that I haven't worked on this fanfic since February, so I've kind of got nothing to say... But I can tell you that in case you were wondering, the 'Gosvah' part of Gosvah Grove probably means something in Dovahzul (the dragon-language of Skyrim); I've just forgotten what it is. *checks on * Oh yeah! It's 'wood'! :)**

 **And if you want to know the origins of Stokehead's name, I saw it as the name of another Timberjack on some HTTYD dragon-fighting game. :D**

 **Concerning the title of the fanfic, the second coming is when Toothless flies after Hiccup to save him from the fire- but it was actually Stokehead who did that before him. ;)**

 **'Teenagers.' XD**

 **Oh, and quick question** **: are there too many line breaks? I was a little worried about that. :)**

 **Anyway, I guess I'll see you guys the next time I update Dragons, Trappers, Masters! :) Bye! :D**


End file.
